My Ultimate Dream

I want to be able to make a living using the internet as the primary source of my income. The reason being is obvious to me, but I'll still explain. Being able to make money online would allow me to live anywhere the world as long as it had a good internet connection.

For me, happiness is grilling on a beach with friends while sipping on a couple of beers while the kids run around playing.

Social Media Man

Blogging is a dying art. Well, maybe not dying, but evolving art. I still feel as though the blog is a powerful tool but it doesn't matter if you have the greatest ideas if no one reads it. I've created a powerful twitter handle that garnered almost 5,000 genuine followers but I have almost completely abandoned that. My YouTube channels have gotten millions of views, but since I wasn't the one creating the content I haven't been able to capitalize on the views as of yet. I still have an idea in my backpocket but I don't want to jinx it. Pheed was a lot of fun and probably had the best features of any social media site, but no one uses it. 

The funny thing is that I've figured out a way for people to make money off the internet, but because it is so complex, I'm finding it hard to get anyone to buy in. Maybe I'm just asking the wrong people.

Why won't the Redskins listen when I yell at my TV?

The Redskins were victorious this week against the Chicago Bears. I'm really glad because I don't think we would have had a snowball's chance in hell to beat the Peyton Manning's Broncos after losing yet another game. Roy Helu, the back up running back, had a fantastic game scoring three rushing touchdowns. RGIII was also able to show off some of his mobility this week. Last but not least, the Redskins have their starting running back, Alfred Morris to round out and dynamic running offense.

So what could I possible have to complain about?

Last week we played the Dallas Cowboys and decided that we weren't going to run the ball. This was crazy considering that Dallas' defensive line was completely decimated by injury. I yelled at my TV and even posted status updates on Facebook pleading with them to run the ball. All to no avail. Sometimes I wonder what the hell Kyle Shanahan is doing. If he was fired after that game I would not have been surprised, because after that lackluster play calling, he would have deserved it. But considering his father is running the team, I doubt he even came close to losing his job..

I will be yelling at my TV again this week when the Redskins play the Broncos. I hope this time they listen. #HTTR

How To Win A Street Fight Simply By Learning How To Move Your Head

Red Bank, New Jersey-based mixed martial arts fighter and trainer Travis Roesler demonstrates “how to win a street fight simply by learning how to move your head.”

Dave Matthews found stranded on side of road by fan

What would you say if you were driving to a Dave Matthews Band concert and saw Dave Matthews stranded on the side of the road?

That's just what happened to Emily Kraus and her boyfriend, who spotted Matthews as they were traveling to his concert in Hershey, Pa., on Saturday.

"We saw him on the other side of the road and we pulled my car in here," Kraus told CBS' WHP-TV affiliate. "And he picks up his bike and throws it up here."

Matthews was on a preshow bicycle ride when his bike broke down.

"I did not have a cell phone on the bicycle. So I thought, 'S---," Matthews told the audience later at Hersheypark Stadium. "And then a nice lady named Emily rode up in a red car with a bicycle rack on it and gave me a ride on to the gig."

Needless to say, the 7-minute ride to the show was a bit surreal for Kraus with, you know, Dave Matthews in the back seat.

"We didn't know how to make conversation with him in fact, so we were talking about his tour and where he had come from," Kraus said. "He had just been in Cincinnati and he said 'I'm taking a short break after this one because I have to drop my daughters off at camp.' He was just a very humble guy."

The 46-year-old Grammy-winning singer-songwriter invited the pair to dinner and gave them backstage passes and memories that will last a lifetime—or at least until they pick up another stranded rock star.

"My cheeks still hurt from smiling, giggling and laughing all night long," Kraus wrote on Facebook.

Matthews also signed their tickets with a note: "Thanks for the ride."

"I woke up this morning, and I rolled over and I said, 'OK, yeah that really happened yesterday," she said. "It was surreal. We couldn't believe it."

Amazon brings 400 magazines and newspapers to Kindle Fire

The Kindle Fire has been in the news a lot lately, and the device hasn't even shipped, yet. In addition to the Android games and apps that are set to come to the Kindle Fire, and the update to their App Store, Amazon has announced that 400 newspaper and magazine titles will be made available for the Kindle Fire. Kindle Fire customers who subscribe before March 1, 2012 will also receive an exclusive free three-month trial of 17 Condé Nast magazines, including Vanity Fair, GQ, WIRED and Glamour. Kindle Fire Newsstand customers will have access to publications from Conde Nast, Meredith and Hearst in full color. Built-in video and audio are also available for some publications like Garden, Allure and Self.

Kindle Fire offers more than 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, books, magazines, apps and games, as well as free storage in the Amazon Cloud and Whispersync for books and movies. Customers of the Kindle Fire also receive a month's free membership to Amazon Prime, which not only gives them access to Prime Instant Video, which has over 13,000 movies and TV shows with unlimited streaming, but also gives them access to the Kindle Owners Lending Library. Through the library, Kindle owners who are also Amazon Prime members, can borrow an unlimited number of books. The Kindle Fire is available for pre-order now and will ship on the 15th of November, 2011.

The anti-Facebook picture

Me and Toniann were sitting on the porch watching the storm roll in. I was trying to explain to her how a blog works. We decided to take some Facebook pictures with the standard poses, but after awhile we got bored and took an anti-Facebook picture.

Lady Saw - Wife A Wife

I Think I'm In Love Again

I used to think I was incapable of falling in love again. Even when I met my girlfriend I fell for her right away, but I kept my heart guarded. I'm not sure when I finally let my guard down, but I'm glad I did. Love gives your life purpose and hope. Yeah, there's a chance things may not work out, but if I focus on that then I'm probably not gonna like the results.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

The Refugee

I took a cab to work this morning because I wasn't feeling too well and I was running hella late..while talking to the guy, I find out that he was working for the UN's refugee program during a war and that he was unable to return to his ciuntry. When he first left, they killed members of his family and burned his house and took his vehicles. I asked himwhenthis war occurred and to my surprise he let me know that the war had not completely ended. I was shocked because I had never heard of this and I like pride myself as a person who pays attention to what's going on in the world. Well,this guy who once worked to help refugees is now a refugee himself. I couldn't imagine not being able to go home, but I suppose if my life is in danger I could get used to anything.

Jamaican Evening News - Tropical Storm Nicole Aftermath

The latest news from the storm in Jamaica.








****

After the Storm

This morning I get woken up by the storm from the last day on Earth. The sound of rain and hail blasting my window caused me to rise prematurely from my slumber. I tried to go back to sleep but it was to no avail. I realized that the electricity wasn't on so I immediately jumped out of bed to take a shower. The last place I want to be when the power is out is home. I don't have any windows in my bathroom so I had to use the flashlights to light up the bathroom. The water pressure was low, but it was somewhat warm, so I wasn't complaining. I got dressed and headed for the elevator. I didn't take too many steps before I realized that the elevator was not going to work because the power was out. Luckily the lights in the stairwell were on. I'm assuming they were running on a generator.

When I get to the bus stop I see that traffic is at a standstill. After waiting for what seems like forever, I decide to start walking. Where I was going? I wasn't sure, I figured anything was better than waiting for a bus that probably never was going to show up.

As I'm walking down the street from my complex, I see the full devastation of the storm. Branches were down everywhere. A bunch of trees didn't survive and as they fell to their doom, they took out power lines with them. I came across on such incident. The light pole was cracked and power lines lined the ground. I didn't think they were live but I didn't want to take the chance, so I just crossed the street. When I got to the bottom of the street, a mile from my complex, I saw that the street was blocked off by flares and a dump truck. As I turned the corner I realized why...The river near the dam had overflowed it's banks and water flooded the road.

I kept on walking, I had no choice because there where no buses coming on the closed road. As I turned the bend I was shocked to see a huge tree lying in the middle of the road. There was a service vehicle standing near the tree and the driver looked just as dumbfounded as I was. The tree brought down some power lines with it, I was glad to be on the other side of the road...I walked passed that and walked and walked and walked. I end up walking past the beltway and then I saw a bus going up the street. I figured I was in a part of town where the buses were running so I stopped at the next bus stop until a bus finally showed up. Man, my feet were killing me and this bus was a godsend. The trains were delayed because of some trees on the tracks and one of the stations were flooded, but I got into the city without incident.

Another batch of strong showers is supposed be coming through shortly, I hope the commute home isn't as bad as the commute in.

Haiku the News

Oil spills on water
Hurricane churns the sea
Still we blame BP

Carnival is in the air....A look back at DC Carnival 2009

Here are the videos I took from last year's carnival...The energy was off the scale! This year's carnival is tomorrow, I'm hoping that it's even bigger than last year's celebrations!

The New Exhibit

On the first floor of my building we have an exhibit space for different pieces of art. Today was the opening of the latest exhibit and I joined my coworker Bob and his wife, Sharon, in checking out the new art. As usual, there was food and wine and the artists stopped by to give a deeper insight into their work. For this exhibit they brought up five artists from the Richmond area. What made these artists special is that they are also scientists and they have used their art as an extension of their science. My favorite piece was a the Möbius strip made from cherry wood. Unfortunately that wasn't for sale but the other Möbius strip with the stripes was selling for $500. I didn't think it was worth it, but what do I know. Bob and Sharon really seemed to enjoy themselves. I can't wait till the next exhibit, but in the meanwhile I'll have to stop by this one a few more times.

Ebert & Rohan

I really enjoy watching movies. I'll watch a good blockbuster but I prefer independent and foreign films. I like watching movies that very few people know about. Movies that transport you to another world. Here are a sampling of some of the decent films that I've come across. (Even if the trailer is in another language, the movies all have english subtitles)

Sun Yum Guy

Thanks to Youtube recommending some videos for me to watch, lately I've been totally fascinated by the idea of solar cooking. I remember a while back seeing a video about an Indian village that had a huge solar cooking facility. It seemed like a great idea but it didn't seem related to my life, that is until I started seeing these videos of smaller solar cookers. Not only were they a manageable and mobile size, the potential recipes were boundless. These meals could be prepared in the morning and be ready by lunch. Plus, there's no need for gas, wood, or charcoal...What could be better for the environment?

Thinking big...feeling small

The one thing about working for a scientific magazine is that every once in a while, you see an article that just blows my mind! (Does Our Universe Live Inside a Wormhole?) Just reading the headline alone was enough to make me say WOW! When you start to think about space, it makes you realize how small you are. If you traveled at the speed of light, which is a little over 186,000 miles per second, it would take you 8 minutes to get the sun. But, it would take you 100,000 years to go from one end of the milky way to the other. That's just one galaxy. The largest galaxy known would take 5 million years to cross! Scientist believe there are more than 170 billion galaxies in the universe. Its hard to picture 170 billion of anything...It's almost impossible to grasp! To put in perspective, that's about half the number of cells in our body. Many of these galaxies have stars that would make our sun look like invisible by comparison...I think my head is starting to hurt now.

A Chinese chupacabra?

Every once in a while you read an article that makes you say WTF?! Below is one such story.



A mystery beast that resembles a chupacabra ("goat-sucker"), a legendary, fearsome and possibly mythical beast said to inhabit parts of the Americas and Puerto Rico, is seen shortly after its capture in a village in Suining, Sichuan Province on March 24.

In this case, the gray colored animal wasn't attacking goats, but chickens and it was the fowls' cries that alerted village Ke Suying to find the mystery predator tearing into his birds. He tried to drive it away with a stick but failed, though later with the help of neighbors caught it in a steel net.

It resembles a large rat or a mutant mix of kangaroo and dog, with large claws. It is about 60 centimeters long, with a 30-centimeter tail. Villagers describe it as "quite fierce" and said it ravenously consumes both meat and vegetables fed to it.

Most of its brown fur has fallen out, with only a little left on its back and a front foot.
The creature has been given to the Sichuan Province forestry department for further examination.


Source: Suining Daily

Uptown Top Ranking

One of the great perks from being Jamaican is that there's a good chance you grew up with a healthy dose of music, whether its at home or one of the many parties Jamaicans like to throw. I heard this song in the background of one my new favorite shows. I had to spread the love.